27 - Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015)

Summary

BACKGROUND

In Obergefell v. Hodges, decided in June 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional state laws in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman only. In effect, this landmark decision legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The case marks the final stage in a long and contested political and legal struggle to remove such marriage bans.

The first attempts to secure marriage rights through the judicial system date back to the early 1970s, when five same-sex couples filed lawsuits challenging a denial of marriage licenses. Their lawsuits were denied. During the 1980s, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) movement itself – mobilized by various legal and societal changes related to sexual relations, gender, and family – led a more organized campaign for legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Two events were particularly strong catalysts: the HIV/AIDS crisis and the “gayby-boom,” in which lesbian mothers slammed up against the legal system in trying to secure parental rights. At the time, however, the movement pursued marriage alternatives rather than the right to marry.

The marriage equality movement as we know it gained momentum after the Hawaii Supreme Court's 1993 decision in Baehr v. Lewin, the first in the United States that questioned the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans. (Due to a state constitutional referendum, same-sex marriage did not become available in Hawaii.) The Baehr decision created a serious political backlash that led to passage of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a law that defined marriage, for federal purposes, as between a man and a woman only.

Despite such hostility, the marriage equality movement made progress, with Massachusetts, in 2003, becoming the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. Following Massachusetts, some states repealed their restrictions on same-sex marriage by either court decision (Iowa, Connecticut) or legislation (Vermont, New York). However, because of DOMA, couples could only enjoy state benefits attendant to marriage, not federal ones.

The tipping point was United States v. Windsor, where the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated section 3 of DOMA, ordering the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages performed in states that allow it. Following Windsor, marriage equality advocates successfully litigated in four federal circuit courts but lost in the Sixth Circuit. The U.S. Supreme Court took that case – which is Obergefell.